BAPTISTS AGREE ON NEW CHURCH PLAN

The First Baptist Church of Orlando has agreed to let 400 to 500 members try to form a new congregation at the church's old downtown buildings on Pine Street.

At a meeting Sunday night at their new $16 million sanctuary complex in west Orlando, members unanimously approved a plan to let a new, autonomous church buy the older 2,000-seat sanctuary and educational support buildings.

The action comes five months after the main body of the 8,000-member congregation left the 114-year-old location downtown and moved to a 150-acre campus on L.B. McLeod and Vineland roads off Interstate 4.

At a town-hall type meeting in

the downtown sanctuary earlier this month, about 1,000 people, many of them retirees who live around downtown, voiced their desires to break away from the main body of the congregation. Some live in a nearby retirement tower built and managed by the church.

"We have worked and prayed hard for a positive decision," the church's pastor, the Rev. Jim Henry, said Monday. "We believe the Lord gave one and for that we are deeply grateful."

Henry had appointed a committee to investigate the possibilities of a division and make a recommendation to the church's governing boards. Those boards, in turn, made a recommendation to a meeting of the full congregation at large.

The product of that system was accepted Sunday night at the meeting in the new sanctuary, which was attended by almost 2,500 members from both congregations.

Details of the proposal include:

-- The new church, which has not been named, will be formed as quickly as possible in July, taking responsibility for its own staffing, including finding and hiring a pastor.

-- First Baptist will sell the old sanctuary and education buildings on Pine Street to the new church for $4 million. The newer Pine Street Christian Life Center building, which includes many church offices and a gym, will remain under ownership of First Baptist, which has put it up for sale.

-- Through a complex system of escrow accounts and interim payments, the new congregation will start paying the $4 million immediately, but final financial arrangements will not be made until December 1986, so the new congregation will have time to establish itself.

Church officials in 1981 decided to establish a new campus away from downtown after being frustrated in attempts to buy enough

property to support the congregation's phenomenal growth.

The 7-acre site downtown was fully utilized with three filled Sunday morning services and church-owned parking for only 150 cars.

When the 150-acre site in west Orlando was found, there was some dissension within the church about uprooting the main part of the church and moving it 7 miles away.

Church officials assured members that services would continue at the Pine Street location as long as they wanted and that numerous options would be considered for using the older sanctuary after the new buildings were completed.

Forming a new congregation to buy the Pine Street church was among options mentioned, but officials said they did not believe the move would come so soon.

Church officials said their three-year fund-raising program to pay for the new sanctuary is on schedule. They denied rumors within the downtown congregation that the campaign is far behind pledges and that financial problems motivated church leaders to accelerate plans to sell the Pine Street campus.

As evidence of First Baptist's financial stability, church leaders point to an offer to carry part of the fledgling congregation's $4 million note interest-free for two years.